The Builders

By: Daniel Polansky

Narrated by: Corey Gagne

The Magnificent Seven meets The Wind in the Willows in this action-packed fantasy adventure from Daniel Polansky, The Builders.

A missing eye.
A broken wing.
A stolen country.

The last job didn't end well.

Years go by, and scars fade, but memories only fester. For the animals of the Captain's company, survival has meant keeping a low profile, building a new life, and trying to forget the war they lost. But now the Captain's whiskers are twitching at the idea of evening the score.

PRAISE FOR THE BUILDERS

"A living, breathing world of vivid, winsome characters hellbent on their blaze of glory and as unforgiving as a runaway train carrying all your friends over a cliff. I haven't cared about animals this much since Watership Down." — Delilah S. Dawson, author of Hit and Wicked as They Come

"Nobody does dark like Polansky. The Builders is Redwall meets Unforgiven, combining the endearing wit of Disney's Robin Hood with all the grit and violence of a spaghetti western." — Myke Cole, author of the Shadow Ops series

Tone and structure issues disappoint a promising plot

I really wanted to like this. I went into it reading great reviews and recommendations, but what I found was disappointing.
I saw other criticisms always boiling down to the animal characters but that didn’t bother me at all. It wasn’t used to great success, but it didn’t ruin the fantasy.

What did ruin it for me is the tone and structure.
It felt like teenage fan fiction and was in a competition with itself to be the most edgy.
I understand the violent juxtaposition with the critters. The gruesome descriptions isn’t the issue here. Again, I wanted to like it because I liked the idea but the writing was not good and constantly took me out of it.

Additionally, the structure is poorly constructed. There were far too many “chapters” that last 20s per audibles tracking. It amounts to “Chapter X: Subtitle. One or two lines” and then the next chapter. It ruined the pacing of the book. It reminded me of Capitan Underpants, the graphic novel for kids, where an entire chapter is “and so they did”.
Part of that is the fault of the audio book structure, but it happens too much to be excusable.

The sequence of events is okay. It’s a lot of characters and you don’t understand their relationship and then you’re drip fed information as the book goes on that back-constructs the gaps. I like it and would love to listen again now with all the information, but the other issues prevent me.

Lastly, the story itself isn’t long. I don’t recall the specifics off the top of my head, but of the 3.5hr long audio book, I think after 2hrs we stopped introducing characters and the gang is assembled and could finally actually progress the plot which resolves immediately and once I finally care about the characters it’s over and they didn’t get to perform anything.

awesome

I loved this book. it's like the magnificent 7 but with animals. a great read.

Short & Fun

Really enjoyed this. A tight story that doesn't leave many loose ends. The action is only as long as it needs to be, and the characters are neat, but a large cast for such a brief story made for confusing moments as I struggled to differentiate between them until near the end of the story. The narrator did a fine enough job for the most part, though he takes time falling into certain characters voices, which did not help with the problems of identity. All things considered, I liked it.

so good! such fun! much animal!<br />

freat narrator, fun story, fans of the redwall series who are all grown up now taje notice!

A good listen

it's a bit short. I liked the characters and would have been nice to get a bit more. But overall very enjoyable.